it was extremely deep, and savagely desolate and bare. She now saw
that the Eagle's Ladder was a succession of bare gigantic terraces of
rock, of which the opposite side of the ravine was composed, and on
one of which stood the castle. It was no small mystery to her how it
had ever been built, or how she was ever to get there. She saw in
the opening of the ravine the green meadows and woods far below; and,
when her father pointed out to her the Debateable Ford, apparently
much nearer to the castle than they themselves were at present, she
asked why they had so far overpassed the castle, and come by this
circuitous course.

"Because," said Hugh, "we are not eagles outright. Seest thou not,
just beyond the castle court, this whole crag of ours breaks off
short, falls like the town wall straight down into the plain? Even
this cleft that we are crossing by, the only road a horse can pass,
breaks off short and sudden too, so that the river is obliged to take
leaps which nought else but a chamois could compass. A footpath
there is, and Freiherr Eberhard takes it at all times, being born to
it; but even I am too stiff for the like. Ha! ha! Thy uncle may
talk of the Kaiser and his League, but he would change his note if we
had him here."

"Yet castles have been taken by hunger," said Christina.

"What, knowest thou so much?--True! But look you," pointing to a
white foamy thread that descended the opposite steeps, "yonder beck
dashes through the castle court, and it never dries; and see you the
ledge the castle stands on? It winds on out of your sight, and forms
a path which leads to the village of Adlerstein, out on the other
slope of the mountains; and ill were it for the serfs if they